Anne of Ingleside. L. M. Montgomery

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СКАЧАТЬ There was a lane curtained with wild-cherry blossoms … a grassy old field full of tiny spruce trees just starting in life and looking like elvish things that had squatted down among the grasses … brooks not yet "too broad for leaping" … star-flowers under the firs … sheets of curly young ferns … and a birch tree whence some vandal had torn away the white-skin wrapper in several places, exposing the tints of the bark below. Anne looked at it so long that Diana wondered. She did not see what Anne did … tints ranging from purest creamy white, through exquisite golden tones, growing deeper and deeper until the inmost layer revealed the deepest richest brown as if to tell that all birches, so maiden-like and cool exteriorly, had yet warm-hued feelings.

      "The primeval fire of earth at their hearts," murmured Anne.

      And finally, after traversing a little wood glen full of toadstools, they found Hester Gray's garden. Not so much changed. It was still very sweet with dear flowers. There were still plenty of June lilies, as Diana called the narcissi. The row of cherry trees had grown older but was a drift of snowy bloom. You could still find the central rose walk, and the old dyke was white with strawberry blossoms and blue with violets and green with baby fern. They ate their picnic supper in a corner of it, sitting on some old mossy stones, with a lilac tree behind them flinging purple banners against a low-hanging sun. Both were hungry and both did justice to their own good cooking.

      "How nice things taste out of doors!" sighed Diana comfortably. "That chocolate cake of yours, Anne … well, words fail me, but I must get the recipe. Fred would adore it. He can eat anything and stay thin. I'm always saying I'm not going to eat any more cake … because I'm getting fatter every year. I've such a horror of getting like great-aunt Sarah … she was so fat she always had to be pulled up when she had sat down. But when I see a cake like that … and last night at the reception … well, they would all have been so offended if I didn't eat."

      "Did you have a nice time?"

      "Oh, yes, in a way. But I fell into Fred's Cousin Henrietta's clutches … and it's such a delight to her to tell all about her operations and her sensations while going through them and how soon her appendix would have burst if she hadn't had it out. 'I had fifteen stitches put in it. Oh, Diana, the agony I suffered!' Well, she enjoyed it if I didn't. And she has suffered, so why shouldn't she have the fun of talking about it now? Jim was so funny … I don't know if Mary Alice liked it altogether. … Well, just one teeny piece … may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb, I suppose … a mere sliver can't make much difference. … One thing he said … that the very night before the wedding he was so scared he felt he'd have to take the boat-train. He said all grooms felt just the same if they'd be honest about it. You don't suppose Gilbert and Fred felt like that, do you, Anne?"

      "I'm sure they didn't."

      "That's what Fred said when I asked him. He said all he was scared of was that I'd change my mind at the last moment like Rose Spencer. But you can never really tell what a man may be thinking. Well, there's no use worrying over it now. What a lovely time we've had this afternoon! We seem to have lived so many old happinesses over. I wish you didn't have to go tomorrow, Anne."

      "Can't you come down for a visit to Ingleside sometime this summer, Diana? Before … well, before I'll not be wanting visitors for a while."

      "I'd love to. But it seems impossible to get away from home in the summer. There's always so much to do."

      "Rebecca Dew is coming at long last, of which I'm glad … and I'm afraid Aunt Mary Maria is, too. She hinted as much to Gilbert. He doesn't want her any more than I do … but she is 'a relation' and so his latchstring must be always out for her."

      "Perhaps I'll get down in the winter. I'd love to see Ingleside again. You have a lovely home, Anne … and a lovely family."

      "Ingleside is nice … and I do love it now. I once thought I would never love it. I hated it when we went there first … hated it for its very virtues. They were an insult to my dear House of Dreams. I remember saying piteously to Gilbert when we left it, 'We've been so happy here. We'll never be so happy anywhere else.' I revelled in a luxury of homesickness for a while. Then … I found little rootlets of affection for Ingleside beginning to sprout out. I fought against it … I really did … but at last I had to give in and admit I loved it. And I've loved it better every year since. It isn't too old a house … too old houses are sad. And it isn't too young … too young houses are crude. It's just mellow. I love every room in it. Every one has some fault but also some virtue … something that distinguishes it from all the others … gives it a personality. I love all those magnificent trees on the lawn. I don't know who planted them but every time I go upstairs I stop on the landing … you know that quaint window on the landing with the broad deep seat … and sit there looking out for a moment and say, 'God bless the man who planted those trees whoever he was.' We've really too many trees about the house but we wouldn't give up one."

      "That's just like Fred. He worships that big willow south of the house. It spoils the view from the parlour windows, as I've told him again and again, but he only says, 'Would you cut a lovely thing like that down even if it does shut out the view?' So the willow stays … and it is lovely. That's why we've called our place Lone Willow Farm. I love the name Ingleside. It's such a nice, homey name."

      "That's what Gilbert said. We had quite a time deciding on a name. We tried out several but they didn't seem to belong. But when we thought of Ingleside we knew it was the right one. I'm glad we have a nice big roomy house … we need it with our family. The children love it, too, small as they are."

      "They're such darlings." Diana slyly cut herself another "sliver" of the chocolate cake. "I think my own are pretty nice … but there's really something about yours … and your twins! That I do envy you. I've always wanted twins."

      "Oh, I couldn't get away from twins … they're my destiny. But I'm disappointed mine don't look alike … not one bit alike. Nan's pretty, though, with her brown hair and eyes and her lovely complexion. Di is her father's favourite, because she has green eyes and red hair … red hair with a swirl to it. Shirley is the apple of Susan's eye … I was ill so long after he was born and she looked after him till I really believe she thinks he is her own. She calls him her 'little brown boy' and spoils him shamefully."

      "And he's still so small you can creep in to find if he has kicked off the clothes and tuck him in again," said Diana enviously. "Jack's nine, you know, and he doesn't want me to do that now. He says he's too big. And I loved so to do it! Oh, I wish children didn't grow up so soon."

      "None of mine have got to that stage yet … though I've noticed that since Jem began to go to school he doesn't want to hold my hand anymore when we walk through the village," said Anne with a sigh. "But he and Walter and Shirley all want me to tuck them in yet. Walter sometimes makes quite a ritual of it."

      "And you don't have to worry yet over what they're going to be. Now, Jack is crazy to be a soldier when he grows up … a soldier! Just fancy!"

      "I wouldn't worry over that. He'll forget about it when another fancy seizes him. War is a thing of the past. Jem imagines he is going to be a sailor … like Captain Jim … and Walter is by way of being a poet. He isn't like any of the others. But they all love trees and they all love playing in 'the Hollow,' as it's called—a little valley just below Ingleside with fairy paths and a brook. A very ordinary place … just 'the Hollow' to others but to them fairyland. They've all got their faults … but they're not such a bad little gang … and luckily there's always enough love to go round. Oh, I'm glad to think that this time tomorrow night I'll be back at Ingleside, telling my babies stories at bedtime and giving Susan's calceolarias and ferns their meed of praise. Susan has 'luck' with ferns. No one can grow them like her. I can praise her ferns honestly … but the calceolarias, Diana! They don't look like СКАЧАТЬ